Letters to Erik
by Clever Lass
Summary: Leroux-based. "Letters to Erik" returns to FFN in order to announce the release of the full-length novel. "A friend will lie about your death to the girl who jilted you," Christine said. "But a true friend will help you carry your gravestone."
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: This story was posted here on FFN two years ago. It was very favorably received, to the extent that several of my readers convinced me to have it published.

**I am pleased to announce that "Letters to Erik: the Ghost's Love Story" is now revised, completed, and available in paperback**. If interested, please visit my "bio" page. I am only going to be posting a few excerpts of it here in order to let people know that the paperback has been released... and, well, to shamelessly pimp it. Heh.  
"For details, see my published works," as Gilderoy Lockhart likes to say.

The story begins with a series of letters from Christine to Erik, whom she thinks is dead, but soon changes into a "live-action" format. It is as faithful to Leroux as I can possibly make it, with no other influences from ALW or Kay or anyone else. It is an E/Ch story that ends happily (yes, it IS possible to write one of those, if you only read Leroux closely enough!). I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Chapter 1: The Prodigal's Return

_1884_

_Dear Erik,_

_I am writing this from my hotel room in Copenhagen. Mamma Valérius, Raoul, and I were able to catch the last train heading north, and plan to be back in my beloved homeland very soon. It will be good to breathe the air, see the mountains, and speak my own language again._

_Raoul and I are planning to be married in a small church in my hometown. I almost wish you could be there—but it would be cruel of me to wish that upon you, wouldn't it? All the same, it will be one of the happiest days of my life, and I do wish it were possible to share it with the people who have been dearest to me._

_Yes, Erik, you are one of them. If I were to write from now until doomsday I could not express enough regret for how I hurt you. I only wish I could have told you while you were still alive, that you changed my life. It was your touch upon me that gave me any greatness whatsoever. Without you, I would have been nothing… and without your influence I would not have become a star, and Raoul would never have noticed me again._

_I wager that's the part you probably regret the most!_

_My dear Erik, I rather miss singing with you. Raoul doesn't like me to sing for anyone but him; and while I love singing for him, I must confess that I do miss the public acclaim I used to get. Does that make me vain? I miss you as well, my friend: I miss sitting with you in the evenings, reading with you, singing with you, talking with you. You know such a great deal about so many things—I'm still at a loss to see what you could have seen in a timid little songbird like me. I've tried to hide my grief from Raoul. He never understood what you and I shared; even though it wasn't what you wished it could be, it was still far more than I ever hoped for or deserved._

_Rest in peace, my friend._

_With love,_

_Your Christine_

With a faraway look, Christine blew on the ink to dry it. She emptied her reticule on the dressing table and poked around the scraps and objects there until she found what she was looking for. It was a very tiny key, about the length of her thumb. She inserted it into what looked like solid wood in the front of her jewelry box, and opened the hidden bottom drawer. She lifted out an oval of black silk, very finely shaped and hemmed—even the two narrow eyeholes.

The full-face mask had a long piece of black ribbon that would have tied behind the head of its wearer. Christine sat for a few minutes, just holding the mask. She fingered the silk thoughtfully, lifting it up to feel its smoothness with her lips. Erik had removed it during their final moments together, when they had clung together and cried like children. They had mingled their tears and exchanged tender kisses, before Erik had sent her away with her beloved Raoul. She hadn't realized that his mask was still clutched in her hand, but now she found a poignant sort of comfort in keeping it. Knowing that she had left Erik behind to die alone, still grieved her more than her sunny-faced fiancé could possibly guess.

She folded the now-dry letter and slipped it into the hidden drawer, placing the silk mask on top of it. She heard her fiancé call her name, and she quickly locked up the little box and put it back into the drawer of her dressing table. "Coming, my love," she called, and turned down the lights as she left the room with a sad smile.


	2. Chapter 2

_My dear Erik,_

_I know it is sad and even rather disturbing that even though you're gone I still feel this compulsion to tell you about my day! Is writing letters to the dead a sign of mental imbalance, do you think? For that matter though, you may very well be the last person I should be asking about mental imbalances! Oh, my poor Erik – how things might have been different for you, had you been treated differently! You might have been the sanest and wisest of men!_

_Or is it simply that old habits are difficult to break? It is ironic that when I used to spend my time with you, I used to write letters to Raoul (that he never received). Now that I am married to him, I end up writing letters to you (that you likewise will never receive)._

_We arrived in my hometown today, and you would be amazed at how many people remembered "Little Stina," as I was called here. Christine was only my French name—here, I was Stina Daaé, the violinist's daughter. It was so nice to hear my old name again today, and my own language! Raoul was quite lost, I'm afraid. The poor dear, how confused he looked when I introduced him to all of my father's old friends—and he couldn't understand a word of the introduction! I was tempted to laugh, but it would have hurt his feelings. I fear that he saw my amusement anyway; he became rather sulky for the rest of the day._

_We have bought a palatial house on the outskirts of my old village. I had wanted to move closer to Gothenburg, where I would have been able to continue my musical education, but Raoul insisted that we stay here in my old village near Upsala. I tried to explain that I didn't know many people here; Papa and I left for the city while I was still young. But Raoul insists that a small village is what we want, because no one will be able to find us._

_Personally, I don't think we'll be that hard to find in a house this large, but I held my tongue. I didn't want to get involved in an argument so soon before we marry. I do wish that I could go on studying music and singing, though; it doesn't look as if I shall have that chance if we remain here._

_We arranged for my old priest to marry us next week. But now, hear the best part! When he heard about who I had been in Paris, Father Fisk now wants me to come and sing in church on Sundays! Not even Raoul could object to that, I'm sure! I am so excited—and now I really do wish you could come and hear me. I know my voice is rusty from being out of practice, and I know you would be cross with me if you heard me now. I shall have to start practicing; he wants me to begin the Sunday after our wedding. I cannot wait!_

_I just re-read that last paragraph, Erik, and it sounds as if I'm more excited to be singing again than I am about my own wedding. I assure you, I'm quite excited about both. I am! Honestly!_

_I'm just not that eager to live in Upsala again._

_I still miss you more than I can say. I could never wish for a better companion than you were. Raoul loves me, but he has no great love for music. My father, God rest his soul, loved music as much as you do, but was never much for reading. Mama Valérius loves reading, but (God bless her) lacks the intelligence to make good, sparkling conversation. You, on the other hand, satisfied my need for companionship on nearly every level. Your death has left a giant hole in my heart that nothing else seems to fill, no matter how hard I try._

_My dearest Erik, why did you not keep your promise to me? I read your death-notice in _l'Epoche_, but when I went back to your house I found only the Persian, who informed me he had already taken care of your body. I would have been honored to do that for you, Erik—why didn't you make him wait for me?_

_Listen to my foolishness, asking a dead man why he didn't make the living do one thing or another! Still, it was a disappointment. I do appreciate that he gave me back your ring to keep, though. It gives me something tangible to remember you by, for when my voice fades into insignificance._

_Speaking of which, I had better get practicing if I'm to sing in public in two weeks! I shall simply pretend that you're here with me, teaching me, and I should do fine._

_I wish you really were here with me, my dear._

_Ever your loving_

Christine 

Christine folded this letter up with the other, and locked them into her jewelry box. She had no idea why she felt like writing to Erik every so often, but as long as Raoul never found out about it, it should be fine. Erik had been a huge part of her life after all, and his passing had left her feeling empty. It's just until I get through my grief, she told herself. Raoul wouldn't understand about my grief, so I simply won't burden him with it. I'll pour my feelings out on paper, where they'll harm no one, and if the dead really do haunt the living sometimes, then Erik will know I'm thinking of him.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

_Dear Erik,_

_Dear Mamma Valérius is very ill. I am worried about her. She has not been well since shortly after our wedding. I hate to see her suffering; she has been so good to me through the years, staying in Paris with me even though she longed to see her homeland again. Like my father. I wish he could have lived to return here with us; to think of him just wasting away in Paris, pining for his native land, just breaks my heart. _

_Truth to tell, it also makes me a little angry that Sweden meant more to him than I did. He could have become accustomed to Paris if he'd wanted to, and continued to teach me my music, but instead he just stayed locked up in his room playing his old country folk songs all the time. I miss him greatly, and I've never stopped loving him, but I am old enough now to realize that he was not infallible as I used to think. I wish he had chosen to engage himself with the world around him, instead of always looking backward to what might have been!_

_I can ruefully acknowledge that there is a certain irony to my writing those words to a dead man._

_Am I growing up, Erik? Or am I just becoming discontent?_

_Your loving_

_Christine_

* * *

_Dear Erik,_

_This morning I sang in the church for the first time. It was beautiful, with the sun coming in the windows and the lovely acoustics in the church. It reminded me of that time you made me sing in the rotunda, so I could hear my voice bouncing off all those rounded stone walls! Father Fisk thanked me, and several others complimented me and said I must have had a very great teacher! I told them I had, but that he'd died recently, and I was still mourning him. They offered their condolences, but Raoul hurried me out of there soon after that. It was strange. I hadn't thought it possible for him to be jealous of a dead man, but so he seems._

_I asked him about it in the carriage: I wanted to know what the harm was in even referring to you, and he made some half-hearted excuse about not wanting the outside world to know who we were._

_Who were we, I asked, a little bit angry—these are my own people, after all! —and he said we were now the Count and Countess de Chagny. Since Philippe died without legitimate issue, Raoul inherited the title of Count de Chagny. It's so strange, Erik—I don't feel much like a countess, even though we got married a week ago. I just feel like little Stina, finally come home._

_It still seems odd to think that little Stina got married a week ago. The wedding was lovely, with many of my parents' old friends in attendance. It was not comfortable; the dress that Raoul insisted I be married in was really a bit much for such a small community. Our neighbors seemed ill at ease, as if they didn't know what to do or how to talk to me. I tried to put them at ease as much as I could, but Raoul's not being able to speak any Swedish made it difficult to introduce him and interact with all of my family's old friends._

_It's all so strange, to live with a man, to be married to him. I thought married people always shared a bed, but Raoul tells me this is not the case; only the lower classes share a bed once they're married. Men and women of his rank keep their own separate bedrooms. This seems odd to me, for the husband to merely visit his wife for their—ah, but there I cannot talk of something so private, even in a letter—and then return to his own room afterwards._

_If I had married you as you had wished, dear Erik, would you have still made me sleep alone? But there, I'm being ungrateful again. Raoul has given up a great deal to marry me, and I am sure I'll become accustomed to the customs of the nobility soon enough. And I mustn't think of you in that way in any case, as I'm now married to someone else, whom I love. Deeply._

_All the same, my dear, you never left me when I asked you to stay._

_Your Christine_

Christine locked up the letter and stood up, shivering. She reached up and turned off the gaslight, and then hurried over to her bed by the moonlight that came in the window. She took off her dressing gown and laid it carefully over the bed—she could use the extra warmth—and crawled in between the covers. The last lingering bit of heat from the young _comte's_ body had dissipated, and Christine steeled herself to shove her already-chilly bare feet down to the bottom of the bed where the sheets were still icy.

Swedish winters were something she hadn't missed much, in Paris.

She lay still, shivering, knowing it would be a long time before she warmed up enough to fall asleep. She wished Raoul had stayed—to provide some extra warmth, if nothing else!


	4. Chapter 4

_Dear Erik,_

_I haven't needed to write to you for a while, which I had hoped was a good sign that I was getting over my grief over your death. I am beginning to fear, though, that you were right when you told me I could never, ever leave you—you seem to be present with me all the time in my mind. You were all I could think of when I sang in church last week. You would be proud of me, though, because I managed to remember to keep my chin down when hitting the high notes. I still remember with fond amusement, the time you demonstrated the difference in sound between hitting them properly, and "trying to reach for them with your chin." It was such an awful sound that I was afraid the _corps de ballet_ would come running to stop me from killing some poor cat! That was in my dressing-room before you ever showed yourself to me, and I remember thinking that angels are beings of spirit. Do they even _have_ chins? It was no wonder that little Giry and little Jammes were always bleating about being afraid of the ghost, if that is how you haunted them! And while I think of it, did you really have to frighten them so? I know it must have amused you, but my dear, they were so shrill! _

_I must apologize, Erik, for the way I reacted when I discovered that you really were not an angel from heaven. How silly I was, to think you might have been! I do think, though, that you could have been a bit more honest with me back then and spared me the pain of my disillusionment! I do sometimes wonder what might have happened if you had told me from the beginning that you were a man, and had taught me anyway. Perhaps things could have been different._

_Certainly I would not have been treated as coldly after I sang as Raoul has been treating me. The silly boy—he knew I loved to sing. Why, then, must he act so cold and distant toward me every Sunday when we're driving home from church? He has never asked me not to sing in church; he has merely forbidden me from going on stage anywhere. So why is he so aloof? He doesn't thaw out until mid-week, but by then I'm anticipating another chilly Sunday after church so I can't really enjoy the time he spends with me when he isn't being cool or reprimanding me._

_I knew it would be cold in Sweden, but I thought it would be warm in my own home._

_He spoke to me quite sharply the other day about my being too "familiar" with the house staff. I was only chatting with one of the maids a little, because she had asked where we were from and was very excited to hear that we'd been in Paris for the last several years. It was quite innocent, honestly, but Raoul overheard us and called me into his study to speak to me about it. He reminded me that I am a countess now, and that I'm required to keep a certain distance between myself and the servants; it wouldn't do to treat them as equals, because then they'd start putting on airs and thinking they were entitled to special privileges. I wasn't treating her as an equal (though, as the daughter of a peasant, I really am); all I was doing was treating her as a person. But Raoul didn't see it that way._

_And in truth, I might not have been quite so inclined to chat with her and keep her from her work, if I had any other friends to talk with. But no one comes to see me here, and when I go to see them they are very uncomfortable with a countess in their midst. Sometimes I wish that Raoul were nothing but a peasant, like them! Like me. He has changed from the sweet boy I used to know; as a man, he has a much more commanding presence. I just wish he would save his commands for the navy, and not apply them to his own wife. I know that he loves me, but when the only time he spends much time with me is to scold me for not upholding his noble honor well enough, the love gets harder to see._

_Raoul's two sisters, with whom he used to live, came up to visit. I use the term "visit" extremely loosely, as it was not an enjoyable time for any of them. For me it was neutral; as soon as I saw how they were going to be, I withdrew to my room. I don't think I spent more than five or ten minutes with them, and so emerged unscathed. Poor Raoul had to host them for nearly an hour of being shouted at, berated, and threatened with the loss of his inheritance. Luckily this is an empty threat; Raoul has told me that both Clémence and Martine willingly signed over all of their inheritance to Philippe when their father died. With Philippe gone as well, Raoul is the one in charge of the family fortunes._

_They shouted dreadful things about me, though, and about Raoul for marrying me. I could hear them all the way up the stairs and through my closed door. Raoul says they are going home tomorrow, and I am glad. I don't want them around long enough for him to really pay attention to what they tell him about me; he might start to believe them._

_I am sorry, my dear, for coming to cry to you about my marital woes. Raoul really does treat me like a queen most of the time. When he's with me at all, I mean. He does love me, and I am grateful that he does allow me to sing on Sundays at least (even though he does get short-tempered about it). He is so sweet to me by mid-week that I can certainly forgive him being a bit snappish on Sunday afternoons, and when he catches me acting in a way that isn't befitting my rank._

_Heaven knows you were certainly irritated with me much more often than that, my friend! But I am so empty without you that I even miss that. Not to mention that your irritation was usually because I'd done something silly that might damage my voice._

_I must go and try to placate my dear husband. I feel better for having written; I think you do me good, Erik, even from the grave._

_Oh dear, what a morbid thought. That must have come from you, with all your morbidity--sleeping in coffins and such. You must be a bad influence on me, even when you're doing me good!_

_Your loving friend,_

_Christine_

Christine locked the letter up and stood, straightening out her skirts. It was almost time for dinner, and this time she was determined to talk to Raoul about his Sunday afternoon behavior. It was time for this coldness to stop. He had been that way ever since the first Sunday she had sung, when people had complimented her voice and condoled with her over the death of her teacher. She had had enough.

Unfortunately, her discussion did not go as planned, and she and Raoul retired to their respective rooms that evening in a state of cold reserve.


End file.
